Oh there I met a pretty maidThe fairest of her kindShe stood beneath the Hazels shadeWhere lightly blew the windI gave her cheek a hearty smackAs leaning on her neckHer soft hair trailed adown her backWithout a mark or Speck

Within the dyke the bullrush grewAlthough the place was dryAnd Thrushes nest wi’ Eggs o' blueDid on the hedge ribs lyeThe Woodbines in green leaves look'd wanThe Blue bell stooped i' prideAnd there I claspt my bonny AnnAlong the greenwood side

Oh bonny Ann Oh bonny AnnWhat makes you look so fairIs it the love for some fond manOr is't for none you careMy love to thee my bonny AnnWhere primrose blooms wi’ prideI’ll talk and please thee all I canDown by the greenwood side

An excerpt from Ronnie Blythe's Word from Wormingford, published weekly in the Church Times...

"I HAD hardly turned my back on the late afternoon when the vast, bleached Advent moon swung up in the north-east. It whitened the puddles and lit the wet fields. The paths are darkened with sodden leaves, and rainwater dribbles from a blocked gutter.

Carry Akroyd arrives from far Northamptonshire, and we splash off to Lavenham for Sunday lunch. My boyhood lanes twist and turn through a scrubbed universe. The pub restaurants boom in and out of season.

When we walked here long ago, Lavenham was still asleep after all the toil of the Middle Ages, when the looms clattered in every cottage, the sheep were Abrahamic, and wool was gold. We visit Carry’s exhibition in the wildlife gallery, where her hares and foxes slink across canvas and paper. She is mistress of the fenland nocturn and of the geometry of sluices and cuts, of measureless skies, and this end-of-the-year moon. Our mutual passion is John Clare.

For everything I felt a love,The weeds below, the birds above.

She can actually paint that amazing second when a thousand starlings turn left, turn right, all at once. Their only human equivalent is a thousand North Korean soldiers on parade, a breathtaking drill not without its absurdity.

Carry gone, I take part in the Advent carol service at Little Horkesley. Packed church and much expectancy. The stunning Advent antiphons, the gloriously scary Advent hymns. The first andsecond coming, the one precipit­ating the other... "

A very Happy and Blessed Christmas to all followers of this weblog... it's a labour of love for me.

His presence was a peace to all,He bade the sorrowful rejoice.Pain turned to pleasure at his call,Health lived and issued from his voice.He healed the sick and sent abroadThe dumb rejoicing in the Lord.

The blind met daylight in his eye,The joys of everlasting day;The sick found health in his reply;The cripple threw his crutch away.Yet he with troubles did remainAnd suffered poverty and pain.

Yet none could say of wrong he did,And scorn was ever standing bye;Accusers by their conscience chid,When proof was sought, made no reply.Yet without sin he suffered moreThan ever sinners did before.

I would not feign a single sighNor weep a single tear for thee:The soul within these orbs burns dry;A desert spreads where love should be.I would not be a worm to crawlA writhing suppliant in thy way;For love is life, is heaven, and allThe beams of an immortal day.

For sighs are idle things and vain,And tears for idiots vainly fall.I would not kiss thy face againNor round thy shining slippers crawl.Love is the honey, not the bee,Nor would I turn its sweets to gallFor all the beauty found in thee,Thy lily neck, rose cheek, and all.

I would not feign a single taleThy kindness or thy love to seek;Nor sigh for Jenny of the Vale,Her ruby smile or rosy cheek.I would not have a pain to ownFor those dark curls and those bright eyesA frowning lip, a heart of stone,False love and folly I despise.

Oh, I do love to force a wayThrough woods where lone the woodman goes,Through all the matted shades to stray,The brambles tearing at my clothes;And it may tear; I love the noiseAnd hug the solitary joys.

The woodman, he from top to toeIn leathern doublet brushes on;He cares not where his rambles go,Thorns, briers, he beats them every one;Their utmost spite his armour foils;Unhurt, he dares his daily toils.

Knee-deep in fern he daily stoopsAnd loud his bill or hatchet chops,As snug he trims the faggot upOr gaps in mossy hedges stops;While echo chops as he hath doneAs if she counted every one.

COLINYou promised me, a year ago,When autumn bleach'd the mistletoe,That you and I should be as one;But now another autumn's gone—Its solemn knell is in the blast,And love's bright sun is overcast;Yet flowers will bloom and birds will sing,And e'en the winter claim the spring.

LUCYThe hedges will be green again,And flowers will come on hill and plain;And though we meet a rainy day,The hawthorn will be white with May.If love and nature still agree,Green leaves will clothe the trysting-tree;And when these pleasing days you view,Think Lucy's heart yet be true.

The cleanly maiden thro the village streetsIn pattens clicks down causways never dryeWhile eaves above head drops—where oft she meetsThe school boy leering on wi mischiefs eyeTrying to splash her as he hurrys byeWhile swains afield returning to their ploughsTheir passing aid wi gentle speech applyAnd much loves rapture thrills when she allowsTheir help wi offerd hand to lead her oer the sloughsThe hedger soakd wi the dull weather chopsOn at his toils which scarcly keeps him warmAnd every stroke he takes large swarms of dropsPatter about him like an april storm

If Kitty’s rosy presence nowShould chance to bless my sightAgain the oft repeated vowShe'd witness with delightAgain the church again the spireWould prom’t her bosom with desireBut O sweet kitt spurn not delayTime will bring the promis'd day.’

Thus sung the poor enamoured swainAs labouring alongEcho vibrating catch’d the strainAnd brought him back the songAgain the rocks again the plainsIn mellower sound repeat the strainsTill all in chorus roundelayJoin and sing the ‘promisd day.’

My love’s like a lily my loves like a roseMy love’s like a smile the spring morning’s discloseAnd sweet as the rose on her cheek—her love glowsWhen sweetly she smileth on me& as cold as the snow of the lily—my roseBehaves to pretenders who ever they beIn vain higher stations their passions discloseTo win her affections from me

My love’s like the lily my love’s like the roseMy love’s like the smile the spring morning’s disclose& fine as the lily & sweet as the roseMy loves beauty bloometh to me& smiles of more pleasure my heart only knowsTo think that pretenders who ever they beBut vainly their love & their passions discloseMy love remains constant to me

[One of Clare’s songs recent set to music and submitted for a possible forthcoming Clare CD project]

Man, Earth's poor shadow! talks of Earth's decay:But hath it nothing of eternal kin?No majesty that shall not pass away?No soul of greatness springing up within?Thought-marks without? hoar shadows of sublime?Pictures of power, which if not doomed to winEternity, stand laughing at old TimeFor ages, in the grand ancestral lineOf things eternal, mounting to divine?—I read Magnificence where ages payWorship, like conquered foes to the Apennine,Because they could not conquer. There sits Day,Too high for Night to come at — mountains shine,Outpeering Time, too lofty for Decay.

“But at the height of his powers, his inspiration - it was something to behold. He lacked rhetoric. He lacked shape and used many unfamiliar words of his own dialect. But the living earth, the world he knew… if you will permit me an extravagant formulation, it sang itself through him. England sang through him, its eternal, living nature. Thousands of lines, and all of it fresh, seen, melodic, real. It was genius, absolutely. No can that power be destroyed…”

Abscence in love is worse than any fateSummer is winter’s desert & the springIs like a ruined city, desolate.Joy dies & hope retires on feeble wing;Nature sinks heedless — birds unheeded sing.‘Tis solitude in cities — crowds all moveLike living death — though all to life still cling —The strongest bitterest thing that life can proveIs woman’s undisguise of hate & love.

For in that hamlet lives my rising sunWhose beams hath cheered me all my lorn life longMy heart to nature there was early wonFor she was natures self—& still my songIs her through sun & shade through right & wrongOn her my memory forever dwellsThe flower of Eden—evergreen of songTruth in my heart the same love story tells—I love the music of those village bells

Far spread the moory ground, a level sceneBespread with rush and one eternal green,That never felt the rage of blundering plough,Though centuries wreathed spring blossoms on its brow.Autumn met plains that stretched them far awayIn unchecked shadows of green, brown, and grey.

Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene;No fence of ownership crept in betweenTo hide the prospect from the gazing eye;Its only bondage was the circling sky.A mighty flat, undwarfed by bush and tree,Spread its faint shadow of immensity,And lost itself, which seemed to eke its bounds,In the blue mist the horizon's edge surrounds.

There are few places in England today that are remotely like the 'pre-enclosure' heaths that just 200 years ago would have been common. I am fortunate to live within a mile or so of one such surviving heath ~ Woodbury Commons ~ and yesterday spent a happy morning wandering through its "wild rush beds and sloughs squashy traces". Clare's poem describes almost exactly what I walked through. A stunning landscape, never cultivated, that Clare would instantly recognise as akin to his own 'Helpston' Commons.

Maxey Mill is still in use -- milling animal feeds. The Mill pond sluice passes under the mill. A couple of ancient mill stones are propped up against the rear wall, perhaps as a reminder of how grain was ground into flour in the past.

The Autumn's come again,And the clouds descend in rain,And the leaves are fast falling in the wood;The Summer's voice is still,Save the clacking of the millAnd the lowly-muttered thunder of the flood.

There's nothing in the meadBut the river's muddy speed,And the willow leaves all littered by its side.Sweet voices are all stillIn the vale and on the hill,And the Summer's blooms are withered in their pride.

Fled is the cuckoo's noteTo countries far remote,And the nightingale is vanished from the woods;If you search the lordship roundThere is not a blossom found,And where the hay-cock scented is the flood.

My true love's fled awaySince we walked 'mid cocks of hay,On the Sabbath in the Summer of the year;And she's nowhere to be seenOn the meadow or the green,But she's coming when the happy Spring is near.

When the birds begin to sing,And the flowers begin to spring,And the cowslips in the meadows reappear,When the woodland oaks are seenIn their monarchy of green,Then Mary and love's pleasures will be here.

The inly pleased tho solitary boyJourneying and muttering o’er his dreams of joyHaunting the hedges for the wilding fruitOf sloe or blackberry just as fancys suitThe sticking groups in many a ragged setBrushing the woods their harmless loads to getAnd gipseys camps in some snug sheltered nookWhere old lane hedges like the pasture brookRun crooking as they will by wood and dellIn such lone spots these wild wood roamers dwellOn commons where no farmers claims appearNor tyrant justice rides to interfereSuch the abodes neath hedge or spreading oakAnd but discovered by its curling smokePuffing and peeping up as wills the breezeBetween the branches of the coloured treesSuch are the pictures that October yieldsTo please the poet as he walks the fields

Aye, love is fond of libertyGreen valleys and bright flowersSings seeking honey with the beeFor all the summer hoursA silent solitary thingThat lives within itselfYou only see his azure wingThat flies from pride and pelf*

O Love is like a ButterflyFond of green fields and purple sky

This love's a very tender thingThat withering fades from crimeA singing bee without a stingA flower in frost and rimeMore tender then the simple maidWho from seduction fliesMore fair then flowers that love can braidThe birth of Paradise

With the settled and beautiful weather of the past week, and we are promised the coming week, a poem from Clare which beautifully summarises what many will feel this September.

How delightfuly pleasant when the cool chilling airBy September is thrown o’er the globeWhen each morning both hedges and bushes do wearInstead of their green—a grey robe.To see the sun rise thro the skirts of the woodIn his mantle so lovely and redIt cheers up my spirits and does me much goodAs thro the cold stubbles I tread.

Tho’ not that his beams more advances the sceneOr adds to the Landscape a charmBut all that delights me by him may be seenThat the ensuing hours will be warm.And this with the poet as yet in the worldIn a parallel sense will complyFor when he does view the gay scenes there unfurl'd‘Tis only to light him on high.

I have read Foxes Book of Martyrs & finished it today & the sum of my opinion is Tyranny & Cruelty appear to be the inseparable companions of Religious Power & the aphorism is not far from truth that says: 'All priests are the same' the great moral presept of a meek & unoffending teacher was 'Do as ye would be done by' & 'love those that hate you' if religious opinion had done so her history had been praise­worthy.

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Clare's next entry, for the 8th September 1824, will revert to the 'Journal Blog' (Clare Links, left).

Monday 6th was the day that Clare began a Journal, which was to last just a year. Since May 2009 I have been serialising it (see Clare Links on the left of this page). Here is his first entry...

I have determine! this day of beginning a sort of journal to give my opinion of things I may read or see & set down any thoughts that may arise either in my reading at home or my musings in the Fields & this day must fill up a sort of Introduction for I have nothing else to set down all I have read today is Moore's Almanack for the account of the weather which speaks of rain tho it's very hot & fine

Sweet comes the misty mornings in SeptemberAmong the dewy paths how sweet to strayGreensward or stubbles as I well rememberI once have done — the mist curls thick & greyAs cottage smoke — like net work on the spreyOr seeded grass the cobweb draperies runBeaded with pearls of dew at early day& o’er the pleachy stubbles peeps the sunThe lamp of day when that of night is done

In Clare's 'Biographys of Birds', one of my favourite book titles and his 'Bird List' which he made for the tantalising 'Natural History of Helpstone', birds' nests stretch out like an ornithological city. The Large Wood Owle, by which Clare possibly means the tawny owl, 'attacks boys in a bold manner', the Raven builds where it is difficult to climb, the jackdaw in uninhabited houses, and as to magpies which sway about in nests filled with teaspoons, well they are apt to keep their loot. It horrifies him to see the overseers of Helpston rewarding boys who kill sparrows and he would give:

To tyrant boys a feeTo buy the captive sparrows liberty

As he wrote in his poem 'The Fate of Genius'. The fate of genius in the villages of his day could be quite terrifying. So hide away, hide away. Take Cover. Find cover on 'our plain':

Boys thread the woodsTo their remotest shadesBut in these marshy flats, these stagnant floods,Security pervades.

From year to yearPlaces untrodden lieWhere man nor boy nor stock ventured near-Naught gazed on but the sky

And fowl that dreadThe very breath of manHiding in spots that never knew his treadA wild and timid clan

In these thy hauntsI've gleaned habitual loveFrom the vague world where pride and folly tauntsI muse and look above

The rustling of leaves under the feet in woods and under hedges. The crumping of cat-ice and snow down wood rides, narrow lanes and every street causeways. Rustling through a wood, or rather rushing while the wind hallows in the oak tops like thunder. The rustles of birds wings startled from their nests, or flying unseen into the bushes. The whizzing of larger birds over head in a wood, such as crows, puddocks, buzzards &c. The trample of roburst wood larks on the brown leaves, and the patter of Squirrels on the green moss. The fall of an acorn on the ground, the pattering of nuts on the hazel branches, ere they fall from ripeness. The flirt of the ground-larks wing from the stubbles, how sweet such pictures on dewy mornings when the dew flashes from its brown feathers.

The Rose Of The World Was Dear Mary To MeIn The Days Of My Boyhood & YouthI Told Her In Songs Where My Heart Wished To Be& My Songs Were The Language of Truth

I Told Her In Looks When I Gazed In Her EyesThat Mary Was Dearest To MeI Told Her In Words & The Language Of SighsWhere My Whole Heart’s Affections Would Be

I Told her in love that all nature was true

I convinced her that nature was kind

But love in his trials had labour to do

Mary would be in the mind

Mary met me in spring where the speedwell knots grew& the king cups were shining like flameI chose her all colours red yellow & blueBut my love was one hue & the same

Spring summer & winter & all the year throughIn the sunshine the shower & the blastI told the same tale & she knows it all true& Mary's my blossom at last

Child Harold (1139-1158)

Written between April & May of 1841, this is a most interesting poem in that during its composition Clare stopped capitalising every word. It is not known why he started this practice, nor why he ceased doing so.

It is the evening hour,How silent all doth lie,The horned moon he shows his faceIn the river with the sky.Just by the path on which we pass,The flaggy lake lies still as glass.Spirit of her I love,Whispering to me,Stories of sweet visions, as I rove,Here stop, and crop with meSweet flowers that in the still hour grew,We’ll take them home, nor shake off the bright dew.Mary, or sweet spirit of thee,As the bright sun shines tomorrow.Thy dark eyes these flowers shall see,Gathered by me in sorrow.In the still hour when my mind was freeWalk alone - yet wish I walked with thee.

I love to see the slender spireFor there the maid of beauty dwellsAnd stand agen’ the hollow treeAnd hear the sound of Glinton Bells

---oOo---

Her face to me was memory for lifeHer looks her ways in winning forms would steal& left a pain I never ceased to feelHer very voice would memory’s partner be& music lingered in the sound with meHer troubling form was long about my sightO’er day dreams dozing or in sleep by nightMy dreams wore constantly that pleasing painThe face of her I loved & could not gain

This post dedicated to our new member Simona Cola from Italy. Lovely to think that the Society is spreading its wings in another direction. Simona is of course not portrayed in the photo above - it's one from the BBC Library!

Poem 4 ~ Glinton 2009

The sun had grown on lessening dayA table large and roundAnd in the distant vapours greySeemed leaning on the groundWhen Mary like a lingering flowerDid tenderly agreeTo stay beyond her milking hourAnd talk awhile with me

We wandered till the distant townHad silenced nearly dumbAnd lessened on the quiet earSmall as a beetles humShe turned her buckets upside and downAnd made us each a seatAnd there we talked the evening brownBeneath the rustling wheat

And while she milked her breathing cowsI sat beside the streamsIn musing o’er our evening joysLike one in pleasant dreamsThe bats and owls to meet the nightFrom hollow trees had goneAnd e’en the flowers had shut for sleepAnd still she lingered on

We mused in rapture side by sideOur wishes seemed as oneWe talked of times retreating tideAnd sighed to find it goneAnd we had sighed more deeply stillO’er all our pleasures pastIf we had known what now we knowThat we had met the last.

Following requests for the text of the poem that Carry Akroyd sang in Glinton Church during the coach outing during the 2009 Festival, here it is. As many readers of this weblog will know, Clare wrote many, many poems that bear the title 'songs', but with few has the original music survived. Perhaps members and friends should think about composing some new melodies?

Where is the heart thou once hast wonCan cease to care about theeWhere is the eye thou'st smiled uponCan look for joy without theeLorn is the lot one heart hath metThat’s lost to thy caressingCold is the hope that loves thee yetNow thou art past possessingFare thee well

Thou wert the first my heart to winThou art the last to wear it& though another claims akinThou must be one to share itOh, had we known when hopes were sweetThat hopes would once be thwartedThat we should part no more to meetHow sadly we had partedFare thee well

At 3pm on Saturday 11th July, a party left Helpston for a coach outing to Glinton, where Clare went to school and Mary Joyce is buried. During the afternoon in the village, there was a short village walk to the Joyce farmhouse, Society Chair Linda unveiled a new 'Mary Joyce' plaque on the grave, and a programme of poems and songs was held in the church. Over the next few posts, I will record for all to enjoy the poem/song programme -- read by Peter Moyse, Carry Akroyd and myself on the day.

A woman’s is the dearest loveThere’s nought on earth sincererThe leisure upon beauty’s breastCan any thing be dearer?

The muses they are living things& beauty ever dear& though I worshipped stocks & stonesT’was woman every-where

In loves delight my steps was ledI sung of beauty’s choiceI saw her in the books I read& all was Mary Joyce

I saw her love in beauty’s faceI saw her in the roseI saw her in the fairest flowersIn every weed that grows

The educational centre in Cambridgeshire is dedicated to his odes to ants, April daisies and other natural world minutiae.

Jonathan Bate, a Romantic poetry professor and the author of a biography on the poet, said Clare had hugely influenced modern poets writing on the environment. "Many of the young poets interested in the environment today, such as John Burnside, Paul Farley, and Alice Oswald, are deeply influenced by Clare," he said. "It's partly his style of writing about nature with great precision, but also his concern with the local. His imagination is always grounded in a sense of place, which is a huge issue for modern poets - being universal by being local."

The former poet laureate Andrew Motion wrote of him: "Clare may not have the epic sweep of Wordsworth, or the compact excellence of Keats at his best, or the intellectual depth of Coleridge, but his best writing combines sharp seeing and deep feeling to a pitch of greatness." The son of a farm labourer, Clare also wrote poetry on unrequited love, the sometimes fragile nature of his mental health – he was twice admitted to asylums – and described the natural world in his local vernacular rather than the standard English deployed by his Romantic peers. The process of water beginning to freeze is known as "crizzling", stumps of trees are "stulps", and meddling is "proggling".

Robyn Llewellyn, head of Heritage Lottery Fund East of England, said: "John Clare wrote some of his most memorable work in Helpston, labouring for much of his life in the fields of the English countryside, and this is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate one of our nation's most important poets. Our funding has transformed the Clare cottage site and has enabled the important education programme inspiring visitors to share in his creativity and love of the environment and the English countryside."

It all starts with a roomful of friends… the hubbub, smiles and laughter that says “We’re SO glad that you could make it this year”. Helpston looking its July best – is there any other month in the village? Hollyhocks and roses everywhere. A new Journal to devour and a host of Clare friends to share our passion.

An outing to Glinton and the church and green. Poems and stimulating talk, of which more later.

For now, a 'Glinton' poem:

Glinton, thy taper spire predominatesover the landscape and the mindmusing the pleasing picture contemplateslike elegance of beauty much refinedby taste that almost defies and elevatesonce admiration making common thingsaround it glow with beauty not their own.Thus all around the earth superior thingsthose struggling trees though lonely seem not lonebut in thy presence wear superior powerand e'en each mossed and melancholy stone,gleaning cold memories round oblivion's bowerseems types of fair eternity - and hirea lease from fame by thy enchanting spire.

This morning at 7:20ish Paul Chirico was interviewed about the Epping to Helpston walk starting today, cluminating in the opening of Clare's Cottage. Here is the programme running order extract:.

The Cambridgeshire cottage where 19th century poet John Clare lived is to open to the public. Members of the John Clare Trust are retracing an 80 mile walk to the cottage, that the poet once made, to celebrate the opening. Dr Paul Chirico, senior tutor at Fitzwilliman College Cambridge, discusses why the cottage is being turned into a centre dedicated to environmental education.

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Here is John Clare on the same walk in 1841

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I've wandered many a weary mileLove in my heart was burningTo seek a home in Mary[s] smileBut cold is loves returningThe cold ground was a feather bedTruth never acts contraryI had no home above my headMy home was love & Mary

I had no home in early youthWhen my first love was thwartedBut if her heart still beats with truthWe'll never more be parted& changing as her love may beMy own shall never varyNor night nor day I'm never freeBut sigh for abscent Mary

Hail, scenes obscure! so near and dear to me,The church, the brook, the cottage, and the tree:Still shall obscurity rehearse the song,And hum your beauties as I stroll along.Dear, native spot! which length of time endears;The sweet retreat of twenty lingering years,And, oh! those years of infancy the scene;Those dear delights, where once they all have been;Those golden days, long vanish’d from the plain;Those sports, those pastimes, now belov’d in vain.

The landscape holds the memory of everyone who has ever trodden it… all we have to do is listen. In this programme of story, music, poetry and song Chris Wood and Hugh Lupton put their ears to the ground and tell the story of John Clare. It is a performance that explores the porous boundaries between language and place, madness and exile, love and loss.

Hugh is a master wordsmith, Chris is the leading folk musician of his generation, together they weave a beguiling magic.

“Sheer wizardry in the guise of utter simplicity…a packed house sat in a thrall of enchantment, no movement, no intrusive sounds… Hugh Lupton is joined by singer/fiddler Chris Wood, whose style is timeless and beguiling, his songs wonderfully evocative.”Eastern Daily Press

“It's rare to hear work as powerful as Chris Wood and Hugh Lupton's. With beautifully sculpted prose and carefully honed music they seduce the minds of those who listen, skilfully drawing on the past to make sense of the present... This is welcome nourishment for those who like to think for themselves"Verity Sharpe (Late Junction & The Culture Show)

“…. The images that billowed and faded in that darkened auditorium were quite different from those that unspool across a screen. I could put my hands in front of my face and the pictures would not vanish. They were inside me. They belonged to me. They were part of the history of the whole of human life.”The Times

This is a programme that sings of the unsung and remembers the forgotten histories of the soil. Hugh & Chris are the winners of BBC Folk Award for Best Original Song 2006 for ‘One in a Million’.

From Helpston in rural Northamptonshire, John Clare was born in 1793. He is now regarded as the most important poet of the natural world from Britain. He wrote many poems, essays, journals and letters about love, sex, corruption and politics, environmental and social change, poverty and folk life. Even in his madness, his talents were not diminished. Ronald Blythe, President of the John Clare Society, sees Clare as "... England's most articulate village voice".
Clare died, aged 71, in 1864.